q/ and q: are improved versions of : and / -- when you type q: or q/ it brings up a split with your : or / history in it -- so now you can use normal vim editing commands to edit an existing command or type in a new one, and then hit return and it runs the / or : on that line.

Once you get used to using them, you will only use / or : when the search or command you want is absolutely simple and straightforward.

:normal lets you use normal commands at a command line, often used for automation or scripting stuff... so you can do :normal 5j to go down 5 lines.

C-n is just normal complete

If you're using Vim and not using q: q/ :normal ( and hopefully :t, :m etc with relativenumber ) you're missing a lot of Vim's power, and would be better off in an IDE. The speed benefits from Vim are from knowing a large amount of the editor's features.

Practical Vim the book is a good place to start. You should be spending as much time learning Vim as using Vim for about the first two years of your Vim usage.

No offense, but

- you haven't answered my question. Like, at all.

- I don't quite like the 'would be better off in an IDE' part.

That said, at this point I'll better see what I can find about these oh-so-essential features and I might even add them to my routine/workflow (so far, I still don't know why though...).

Edit: As expected, the help page doesn't explain why I should care about those. q: and q/ are nothing I ever missed, :normal is weird and I cannot imagine what it is used for. Basically my whole reason to jump on this thread "Okay, now I don't know these. Why are they useful?" is absolutely still relevant. Reading the documentation isn't enough. I .. won't buy a book at this point.

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm not going to transcribe a book or help files here. The answer is read Practical Vim. It should be required reading for any Vim user.

Whether or not you're trying, you have succeeded.

I'm incredibly quick with Vim and I rarely use `q:`, `q/`, `:normal`, etc.

In fact, I think I only type `q:` as a typo when I'm trying to `:q[uit]` :p